The Self-Awareness Guy

Live the One Life You Have with Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Live the One Life You Have with Self-Awareness

I always encourage people to live the one life they have with self-awareness because it will help them navigate all the challenges they will face. Once you understand your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, you’ll be able to live a deeply fulfilling, meaningful existence.

Perspective frequently makes the difference in the choices you make in life. If you feel a sense of urgency, you are more likely to try to accomplish a task. People motivate themselves in different ways but a key characteristic of those who create movement is a sense that they have to get it done.

You only have one life to live so you might as well make the most of it. Why then is it that people spend incredible amounts of time and effort on everything but what is truly meaningful to them? It’s almost as if someone told them along the way that they couldn’t accomplish what they wanted in life. So they settle for what comes their way, focusing on subsistence rather than growth.

A positive way to improve self-awareness and begin redirecting your thoughts is to ask yourself, “If I only had one week to live, what would I want to do?”

Life is a precious and finite gift. Why would anyone choose to live it without doing something they really love? Think about your own situation and think about what you really want to do in life. Then put some thought into increasing self-awareness and what you can actually do to incorporate your dreams into your everyday life. As you begin working on your dreams, you will begin feeling happier and more balanced because you are connecting with who you really are. Life is just funner when you’re doing stuff you like.

Build in some urgency starting today. What will you do to improve your self-awareness and live the life you really want to?

Cheers,

Guy

Leadership, Self-Awareness, and Improving Morale in Your Company - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Leadership, Self-Awareness, and Improving Morale in Your Company

Leaders who possess self-awareness are able to improve morale in their companies because they understand how their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors affect them and others.

I consult with leaders and organizations to help them improve morale by focusing on positive behaviors. It’s very normal for companies to experience flagging morale and there are some practical things they can do to improve the situation.


The Example of Leadership

Leaders lead by example, a positive one. If they behave in stressed-out ways then employees pick up on it. Think about the difference if a leader is calm and balanced instead of panicking.

Knowledge Instead of Drive

Many leaders get caught up in the idea that they have to drive their employees like a team of horses. They push and push and push until the stagecoach goes careening down a gully. Try being there for employees when they ask for help and give them your knowledge only when they ask for it. Trust that they know how to do their jobs and drive them less.

Find Out What Your Employees Love Doing

People feel great when they are using their talents and are actually interested in what they’re doing. Identify what your employees love to do and have them do it.

Praise Constantly

Telling people they’re doing a great job makes them feel great. Praising also helps you focus on successes rather than always correcting perceived mistakes or offering the dreaded constructive criticism.

Offer Opportunities for Bonding

Give people a chance to interact in positive ways. Set up a regularly scheduled meeting time where people can talk with each other and share success stories.

Value Self-Awareness

Leaders who value self-awareness are able to mange their own and others emotions, thoughts, and actions to build a more cohesive, healthy, positive workplace.


Try these six ideas and you’ll find that your employees are feeling better about themselves, each other and you. What will you do develop self-awareness and improve the morale in your company?

Cheers,

Guy

Using Self-Awareness to Be Successful - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Using Self-Awareness to Be Successful

You can use self-awareness to be successful because you’re able to clearly see what your strengths and areas for improvement are. People try to achieve success in different ways. Some people believe a workshop will create success in their lives, others rely on some outside person to make them successful, some think if they work way too many hours it will bring success. There are a couple of characteristics I have noticed in successful people that I thought I’d share with you.

Success Secrets of Self-Aware, Successful People

  • Have a goal in mind.
  • Keep going even when things get tough.
  • Believe in themselves even when others don’t.
  • Set realistic and manageable goals.
  • Set themselves up for success.
  • Do things to understand themselves honestly.
  • Are open to outside help and scrutiny.
  • Understand that success is something you create.
  • Work intelligently, not just to be busy.
  • Follow their passion.
  • Always work on improving their self-awareness.

Try a few of these ideas on for size and see what they do for your success quotient. Successful people are those who follow their dreams and keep walking even when the road seems impassable. What will you do to increase self-awareness and move toward success?

Cheers,

Guy

Getting Rid of Destructive Pride with Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Getting Rid of Destructive Pride with Self-Awareness

A lot of people who lack self-awareness believe that pride means being as outwardly tough and invulnerable as possible. They’ll insist they’re proud of doing something or being a certain way even when they’re not. This type of thinking produces people who can never back down, admit being wrong, or change their minds. They present a strong facade but are internally shattered and don’t possess the self-awareness to change direction.

True pride is not how much bravado you project or how strong your shell is, it’s how you actually feel about yourself deep inside and how genuinely self-aware, balanced, and fulfilled you are. People who are willing to take a look at who they are and make the necessary adjustments are much more likely to live happily than those who only focus on projecting invincibility.

Being proud really means being at peace with yourself by living life as the real you, not just pretending you’re doing it. Constructive pride is the ability to feel great about who you are as a person at every level, without any rationalizations or qualifications. What will you do to develop self-awareness and move beyond destructive pride?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness, Leadership, and Building a Compassionate Workplace - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness, Leadership, and Building a Compassionate Workplace

Leaders who possess self-awareness are able to build compassionate workplaces because they have the ability to manage their own emotions, thoughts, and behaviors and treat others with kindness and empathy.

You don’t often hear the word compassion and work in the same breath because, at some point, some brilliant leader decided that work should be constraining and repetitive instead of uplifting and fulfilling. This is the same genius who decided that people are just there to help make money and that it doesn’t matter what kind of hardships they have to endure or how unpleasant the work is as long as they’re making the machine run.

The practice of using people solely as robots creates all kinds of tension and disease in the workplace. I’ve found that leaders get much better results when they use compassion to create healthy workplaces. Compassion simply means treating people as if you deeply care about them and understand their experience. It’s a powerful tool to create an environment where employees are valued and understood. Think about what would happen in your workplace if you applied what these smart people say about the subject.

  • Compassion is more important than intellect in calling forth the love that the work of peace needs, and intuition can often be a far more powerful searchlight than cold reason. Betty Williams.
  • If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded. Maya Angelou.
  • Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. Leo Buscaglia.
  • We are already one. But we imagine that we are not.  And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are. Thomas Merton.
  • The greatest degree of inner tranquility comes from the development of love and compassion. The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being. Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama.
  • The act of compassion begins with full attention, just as rapport does. You have to really see the person. If you see the person, then naturally, empathy arises. If you tune into the other person, you feel with them. If empathy arises, and if that person is in dire need, then empathic concern can come. You want to help them, and then that begins a compassionate act. So I’d say that compassion begins with attention. Daniel Goleman.

When I talk with leaders about self-awareness and compassion in the workplace, I get the distinct sense that many don’t yet understand why you would want to care for people at a deeper level because, after all, they’re there to do a job. It is precisely this kind of thinking that keeps their organizations stuck in the cycle of dealing with unhappy and unfulfilled employees.

Leaders who lack self-awareness spend so much time attending to the problems that arise from toxic workplaces that compassion is a welcome alternative. Compassionate workplaces get rid of the negative garbage that comes from not caring for people and replaces it with results from people who feel valued.

Leaders can start doing this at any time they choose but it takes conscious effort and focus on the well-being of their employees. What will you do to increase self-awareness and build a more compassionate workplace?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Rigid Beliefs - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Rigid Beliefs

If you have a high level of self-awareness you will tend not to have rigid beliefs. A lot of well-meaning people try to convert others to their way of thinking or impose their ideas upon them when the true path to happiness and balance is to know themselves so well that they’re comfortable in their own shoes and don’t feel like they have to change others.

When you genuinely like yourself you will discover that you are open to other people’s ideas, even when they’re different. The trap many people fall into is thinking that their way of seeing the world or perceiving situations is the only acceptable view. They see the world through a single filter and, because they’re trying to convert everyone to their beliefs, are certain that everyone else is trying to do the same.

Genuine self-awareness allows you to let go of trying to change other people and focus instead on becoming the happiest, healthiest most balanced and genuine individual you can be. As you become more flexible, you open the door to all kinds of new and wonderful ideas and perspectives and you become a more complete person. What will you do to let go of rigid beliefs?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and How You Relate to People - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and How You Relate to People

When you possess a high level of self-awareness you relate to people more effectively because you’re comfortable with yourself and are able to step outside your own brain and connect with others on a deeper level. If you have a difficult time getting along with others or are uncomfortable in social situations there are some things you can do:

  • Get to know yourself well and be as happy and healthy inside as you can be.
  • Consistently think and do positive things.
  • Avoid justifying or rationalizing your behaviors that don’t build positive relationships.
  • Work on healing your inner hurts and resolving the difficult issues in your life so they don’t get in the way of building positive relationships.
  • Be in touch with your entire range of feelings.
  • Actively pursue your dreams so you can help others do the same.
  • Don’t assume other people think or act like you, accept their way of doing things.
  • Treat people with kindness and compassion.
  • Learn how to trust others.
  • Collaborate with others instead of competing with them.

The happier and healthier you are inside the easier it will be to get along with others. What will you do to relate well with the people in your life?

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy